LISBON – The Portuguese attorney general’s office announced on Wednesday that former prime minister Jose Socrates has been formally charged with a number of crimes including passive corruption, money laundering, forgery and tax fraud.

Socrates, of the Socialist Party, was Portugal’s prime minister between 2005-2011 and is now one of the 28 accused of involvement in a vast corruption plot that also allegedly included bankers and prominent businessmen.

Socrates was arrested in November 2014 at Lisbon’s international airport on suspicion of corruption, which led him to spend almost 10 months in preventive detention and a month-and-a-half under house arrest.

Other figures caught up in the scandal, which is popularly known by the police codename “Operaçao Marquês” (“Operation Marquis”), are the businessman and friend of Socrates, Carlos Santos Silva, and the former president of the Banco Espirito Santo (BES) – once the country’s second-largest bank – Ricardo Salgado.

Enter your email address to subscribe to free headlines (and great cartoons so every email has a happy ending!) from the Latin American Herald Tribune: